Chapter Text
“She’s my chosen one, my soulmate Mr. Phainon, please. Just a little lower, Mr. Phainon. I love this car. You know I love this car.”
He did not want to know how much the customer loved this car.
“I need this car.”
He did not want to know how much this customer needed this car. Phainon let out a sigh, this was getting old. “Sir, I understand wanting the best deal. This price has already been marked down–”
“Listen– listen. I have connections, okay? My cousin’s best friend’s uncle once sold cars. He told me dealerships always have secret discounts. You take another $10,000 off, and we have a deal.” The customer, Telemus, said as though he was the one offering him the best deal.
Phainon was so tired. It was almost five in the evening and their dealings had already been going on for over an hour.
An hour of a grown man spilling his entire tragic backstory— how his mother had left him as a child and how he formed a special connection to the car she had used to drive away from them, which so happened to have a sticker that greatly resembled their own car logo. After learning this, his admiration for the shapes and the curves of their “beautifully muscular machinery” had developed. Apparently, it reminded him of his mother.
Eugh.
He just wanted to get through this deal and call it a day.
“Sir, that’s– that’s not possible. You know that’s below the manufacturing cost of the vehicle. I can assure you that this is the best deal you can get for your ‘chosen one’.”
Phainon fixed a smile on his face and resolutely did not look at his watch. His duty was to the customer, and he felt that maybe– just maybe – they really would be able to get through this tiny bump in the road, finally close this Kephale forsaken deal, and actually go home . He just needed to hold on for a little bit longer.
“What if…” Telemus leaned in from across the desk, letting Phainon get a full whiff of his overpriced cologne.
He resists the urge to wrinkle his nose, to put space between them by jumping out the window. In an attempt to preserve the last of his sanity, he repeats a chant in his head, one Aglaea had berated into him the first time he’d crashed out on a customer: Happy customer, happy company. Happy customer, happy company. Happy customer, happy–
“...I pay in cash?”
He deadpanned. “That doesn’t change the price, sir.”
Telemus scowls at that, clearly unhappy with his unwillingness to bend.
“Oh, so you don’t want my business? Is that what you’re saying? Because I can walk out right now and go buy a car from your competitor–who, by the way, said they’d beat any price!”
Never mind. He doesn’t know why he thought they would be able to close this deal today. “Then I would encourage you to take whatever is best for you,” he says, apologizing silently to Aglaea. There was never any hope for closing this deal.
“How dare– My mother will hear about this!” The kind customer exclaims before turning around and wrenching the office door open.
“Have a great day, Mr. Telemus,” he says, nodding to the door. The last thing he hears before the customer stomps out is a grumbled “–this is exactly why people shop online these days,” followed by the slam of his office door.
Phainon let out the grimace he’d held in for the entire duration of that meeting, finally letting the smile drop from his face. No one had warned him how difficult being a car salesman would be. He would have stuck to the managerial side of things if he had truly known how annoying customers could be.
Phainon loosened his tie and ran a few fingers through his hair. It had been a long day of talking and calls and running around closing deals and making ends meet. Thankfully, there were no meetings left for the day. All that was left was to work through the stack of paperwork on his desk, and then he could head home. The cheap couch he’d gotten when he first moved into his apartment sounded too good right now. Phainon got up from his desk, resolving instead to get a cup of coffee from the mini cafe they hosted at the dealership.
Despite his current qualms, car sales was actually quite the entertaining job. It was something he considered quaint compared to his previous duties, at the very least.
Quaint is one way to put it. There was a certain novelty in talking to people for no other reason than to get their money. It was almost like he had turned into a follower of Zagreus, he mused, as he walked out the door.
He opens his teleslate to check for any messages he could have received from clients or other personnel. He didn’t think he’d done too badly for himself, despite the transgressions most people held against his position.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a head of blonde sitting at the mini cafe that reminded him of a certain someone from very, very long ago.
If Mydei were here, he probably would’ve settled the entire matter in a matter of seconds.
He has no doubt that the other man would have had this handled in 2 seconds flat: the first to put the fear of Nikador into Telemus, and the second to have him kneel in submission, with nary a finger lifted.
A different kind of smile came to him at the picture he’d just painted in his head. It seemed that still after all this time, still he felt the fondness creeping around his eyes and into the edges of his smile whenever he thought about Mydei.
It would’ve taken him nothing more than a brief look to get that guy to shut up, he noted bemusedly, casting another glance at the guy seated a distance away, eyeing the stark red markings across his face and the thin-framed glasses hiding a glint of gold.
Just a brief look, indeed. Now for that cup of coffee—
His brain screeches to a halt and he freezes in his tracks.
Strawberry blonde hair.
Red tattoos.
Gold eyes?
Phainon looks back up a third time (he secretly hopes the man hasn’t taken note of his apparent stalking) and blinks. He blinks again for good measure, just to make sure that he isn’t hallucinating.
He mutters a few prayers to Kephale under his breath. Maybe he was hallucinating and needed the Titan’s intervention to cure whatever psychological damage that customer had inflicted upon him— because there was absolutely no way he had just seen what he thought he’d seen. This was simply a manifestation of his greatest longing and kindest coping mechanism, and there was absolutely no way— absolutely no way — he had just seen that man in the very flesh.
A tiny voice whispers in his mind— absolutely yes way. He's already met some of his other companions from his past life, so why not him as well? The rest of his mind went blank, trying to reconcile the image of the relaxed man, donned in glasses and white button-down, with the warrior prince he had once known and admired.
Did this Mydeimos have problems with his eyes? Did he have anything of the like in his past life? And since when did he wear button downs? Since when did Mydeimos wear anything on top??
His mind was barely able to contain the rising hysteria.
I spent my entire adulthood looking for this man. I spent at least half my childhood in every library I came across because of this man and of course we meet here. At my workplace. At a car dealership.
Wait, but if Mydei is here, does that mean he wants a car?
Maybe he was just here for their surprisingly good pastries and coffee. He had heard that majority of the treats in their mini cafe were supplied from a pretty high end bakery. Maybe he remembers–.
“Mydei?” The man doesn’t turn his head at the whispered words. He must not have heard him.
Well, no matter his reason for being here, Phainon decided he would only be depriving Mydei of his presence if he were to simply ignore him, wouldn’t he?